


If You Build Yourself a Myth

by pukeandcry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M, unexplained powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-25
Updated: 2012-08-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 20:30:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pukeandcry/pseuds/pukeandcry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is six the first time he makes something change. (magical realism AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Build Yourself a Myth

Harry is six the first time he makes something change. He’s drawing at his little table in the playroom, page after page of planets and trees and stick people with too many legs. He’s got a lion drawn on the paper in front of him, and he’s showing it to his mum, telling her about the lion -- “See, his friends are all lost in the jungle and he has to go find them to save them, cos no one else knows where they went, but he does,” -- when he decides that actually, this lion should be blue. He’s already drawn it in yellow and brown, but it really ought to be blue, so he thinks for a minute, frowning a little, and then presses his fingertips against the paper and thinks, _blue_.

The lion turns blue. The grass the lion’s standing on turns blue. The trees and the sky and the sun and the clouds turn blue.

“Oh, Harry,” his mum says, and she sounds breathless. He looks up at her, and she’s got tears in her eyes, and Harry thinks maybe he’s done something bad, that he’s going to be punished and sent to his bedroom. Sometimes he does bad things without knowing it, and he doesn’t really _mean_ to, his mum says he just doesn’t always think.

But she’s smiling, now, and she pulls Harry in close to her chest, hugging him and smushing her face into his curls so hard he flails, trying to get away from her grip. “Stop it, mum, come on,” he protests.

“It’s very beautiful,” she says before she lets him squirm out of her grasp. “My favorite drawing you’ve done yet.”

“Can I go outside?” he asks, and he’s out the door with one arm shoved in his jumper before she can answer.

-

He changes more things after that. He makes his milk turn chocolate one day and his mum scolds him, tells him he’s not allowed, but even then she smiles a little like he’s done something very clever.

He decides to make his hair red one day, just to see what it would be like, and his mum laughs herself silly until he puts it back, feeling slightly put out.

His mum puts up a poster of a tiger in his room, right next to his bed. The tiger is hiding in the jungle and you can just see his eyes, the start of his face, his mouth. Harry touches it at night and turns it into a pig, and a cow, and then a lion, which is how he leaves it, even though he read in a book that lions don’t actually live in the jungle. Later on, he puts in more lions, lots more until the whole poster is lions, little ones and big ones and ones with great huge manes and baby ones. His mum laughs, and says he should leave some empty space for the lions to run around, that it must get too crowded with so many of them, but Harry refuses, and leaves it like that -- all lions.

-

When Harry is ten, he comes home from school and there are strangers in his sitting room with his mum, two grown ups and a boy about his age, maybe a little older, having tea.

“Harry,” his mum says, standing up to hug him, “come say hello. These are some friends of mine, they’re just in town for today and they’ve stopped by for tea.”

“H’lo,” Harry says, kicking at the carpet with his trainers. “Mum, can I go outside?” He holds his hand in his pocket and absently changes the piece of candy that he has in it, makes it go all melted before bringing it back.

His mum exchanges looks with the tall woman sitting next to her. “Maybe you could take my son along?” the woman asks, nodding towards the boy seated across from them. He’s dressed up smart, pressed shirt and a nice jumper with no holes in it like Harry’s has, but his collar is pulled off to the side, and he’s frowning and leaning into himself like he’s trying to hide behind his tangled hair.

“Alright,” he agrees cautiously, sensing that it wasn’t really a question. “You can come, I suppose,” he says to the boy. In his pocket, Harry makes the candy go all pointy and brittle.

“Don’t be too long,” his mother calls after them as the door swings shut, but Harry is already headed across the road to the open meadow, the boy following a few paces behind him.

-

“Can you change things too?” Harry asks the other boy. They’re seated in the tall grass of the meadow, hidden from the road and the house and everything besides the stalks of grass dancing in the wind. Harry puts his hand out, grabs a handful and turns the blades rainbow colored before yanking them out of the ground and tossing them so they float on the breeze.

“No,” the other boy says, and Harry feels sad all of a sudden. He’s always wondered if maybe there’s someone else like him, someone else who can change the words around in their comic books and make flowers bloom faster than they should and who wouldn’t look at him like he was a bit strange when he did it. He’d thought that maybe there was something about this other boy that was a little like him.

“I can... I can do something else, though,” the other boy says, a little quiet like it could be a secret. “Do you want to see?”

Harry nods furiously, his hair flopping into his eyes at the motion.

The other boy takes a breath in and then he holds his hand out in front of himself. He opens it, shows Harry that it’s empty, and then clenches it into a fist, facing down. Something feels staticky and electric around Harry, like when he scuffs his socks on the carpet, and then the boy exhales, turns his fist up and opens it.

There’s a brand new pound coin, sitting face up in the center of his palm.

Harry doesn’t say anything for a minute, not sure what he saw but he knows that it’s _big_ , it’s important, it’s someone else who’s more like him than not.

“It’s stupid, I know,” the other boy says, looking down at the ground. “My mum says--”

“It’s _brilliant_ ,” Harry finally says, smiling so big his cheeks hurt.

“D’you really think?” the other boy asks.

“What’s your name?” Harry asks instead of answering.

“Louis.”

“Can I--” Harry points at the coin, and doesn’t wait for Louis to respond before he reaches forward, touches the coin with the tip of his finger. Something goes all twisty, and then the coin isn’t a brand new pound, it’s a pence, smaller and dented up and dingy.

“Wow,” says Louis, and they sit there like that, Harry’s finger touching the coin still sitting in Louis’ palm.

-

“Mum says there are other people like us,” says Louis. “It’s not so bad, she told me that there’s actually loads of us, so it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Who’s ashamed?” Harry asks. He knows that most people think it’s weird when he makes things change, but it doesn’t stop him, and it never occurred to him that he should feel bad about it.

Louis just blushes a little, and doesn’t answer.

“Anyway, my mate Niall reckons it means we’re wizards, or something,” Harry continues. “He likes it when I change stuff. He says it’s _sick_. He’s always making me change his grades before his mum sees them. I don’t mind, though.” And he doesn’t. Harry likes to change things, especially for appreciative audiences.

“I don’t like to tell people I can make stuff,” Louis confesses. “I had one mate, I told him, but he said it wasn’t possible, even though I _showed_ him--” He cuts himself off. “Anyway. He got mad about it. I guess he didn’t like it.”

“That’s _stupid_ ,” Harry protests vehemently. “He sounds stupid. It’s sick that we can do this, Niall says so. It means we’re special, yeah?”

“Guess so,” says Louis, and he might not be all the way convinced, but he’s smiling now, and he takes his hands out from his pockets where he’s kept them jammed for most of the day, except for when he made the coin. Harry thinks it’s a good thing.

They spend the rest of the day making things, and then changing them. Louis makes a toy truck, and Harry changes it into a dinosaur. Louis makes a rock and Harry changes it into something shiny and faceted, like something from his mum’s jewelry. Louis makes a piece of paper and Harry changes it into confetti shaped like snowflakes and stars, and they float across the park on the wind.

-

Harry doesn’t see Louis after that. He asks his mum about him sometimes, asks when Louis can come back, asks if they can go see Louis, but she always says that Louis’ too busy, or that it’s not a good time, but maybe soon. Eventually Harry stops asking.

He carries on changing things, changes the colors of his trainers when he’s thirteen and doesn’t have the coolest ones at school, tries to change water into beer with mixed results when he and Niall are fifteen and bored, changes the ceiling of his bedroom so that it’s full of twinkling stars in constellations that dance across it while he sleeps.

He doesn’t meet anyone else like him, and sometimes he wonders what happened to Louis.

-

When they’re eighteen, Niall finds them the flat in London, which surprises Harry as much as anyone. Niall is good for bringing food around, and knowing football schedules by heart, and having a laugh, but long range planning is not one of his strong suits, so when he texts Harry and says he’s found them the perfect place near Camden ( _well, kind of near_ , Niall amends later), Harry almost drops his phone.

“There’s a boy called Zayn who lives there already,” Niall explains around a mouthful of something when Harry rings him to get the story. “My brother’s mate went to uni with his sister, or something like that. Needs some flatmates, I guess. Rent’s cheap, don’t think it’s too fancy or anything, but we’ll make do, yeah?”

“Shit, yeah, of course,” Harry agrees.

They’d been talking about moving to London, practically constantly since they were kids it feels like. But that was always just as an idea, something in the future, and now it’s happening. Harry’s full of nervous energy all of a sudden. He’s pacing around his room, smiling and absent-mindedly changing the titles of the spines of his books.

“Haven’t even told you the best part,” Niall adds, dropping his voice a little. “Zayn’s like you. Like, he doesn’t change stuff, but he’s got -- I dunno, something. Greg didn’t really know, but apparently he’s got, like. A power, or something. So’s his sister.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything, just grins madly into the phone. He hasn’t met anyone else like him since Louis, years and years ago. He’s asked his mum occasionally, looked it up on the internet and what have you. There are enough of them that it’s not completely unheard of to be able to do things that you shouldn’t actually be able to, but it’s still rare. Once he’d asked his mum if she could do anything, and she’d seemed to have gone a little sad, and said “No,” sounding like she regretted it, so he hadn’t pushed it.

“Is that... alright?” Niall asks hesitantly. Niall’s so used to Harry changing things that he doesn’t usually remember it’s unusual, but this is new, this is the first time they’ve talked about it in terms of _other people_ , of _more of them_ , of _powers_ and all that. Like it’s something unusual.

“‘Course it is,” Harry reassures him, feeling light around the chest. It’ll be perfect, he thinks. He’ll live in London and they’ll get up to all sorts of mischief and this Zayn lad will be their best mate, and Harry won’t feel like he’s the only one all the time, and Zayn will introduce them to all sorts of people and maybe even knows more that are like them, and -- Harry’s head starts to spin. “When can we be there?”

-

The flat isn’t fancy, Niall had been right, but Harry loves it the second he walks in. The ceilings are high and open, and the windows go all the way up, and inside there’s a bedroom that’s all his own and a toilet and a kettle, so he figures he’ll do just fine.

Zayn lets them in, gives them keys and all that, before disappearing, mumbling something about work and someone called Liam.

His mum only cries once, when she hugs him before leaving to catch her train back home.

“Be careful,” she tells him. “Do good.”

She’s been telling him that for years, ever since he changed something for the first time. _Be careful, do good_. Except Harry thinks that now, for the first time, he gets what she means.

-

Zayn appears in the kitchen the next morning while Harry’s putting the kettle on and makes a vague noise of greeting.

“Morning,” Harry says.

Zayn just nods and sets about making toast before asking, “Settled alright, then?” Harry thinks that Zayn might not be very talkative. He’ll have to work on that.

“Brilliant, yeah,” he says, smiling and trying to look charming and non-threatening, which isn’t a particularly hard task for him. Dangerous has never really been his area. “So, like. Did you have roommates before, or?”

“Yeah, two blokes called Matt and Aiden. Fucked off for some job of Matt’s, moved up north.” Zayn shrugs. “They were good sorts.”

Harry nods. “You work? Go to school?”

Zayn reaches for the kettle that Harry’s got heating, pouring out two mugs of tea for both of them. “Dropped out of uni for a bit, but might go back. My, er -- um, Liam, he’s got me this job right now helping out at an arts centre. Mostly answering phones, you know, but sometimes I get to help out the instructors.”

“You’re an artist, then?”

“Something like,” Zayn says, with a half smile on his lips. “What about you and Niall?”

“Nah, no school. Neither of us are much for further education, I don’t think. I worked in a cafe doing baking back home, was thinking I could find something like that here. Dunno ‘bout Nialler. Reckon he’ll fall into something, he always does.”

Harry pauses. He knows what he wants to ask, but he’s not sure if it’s allowed, if Zayn wants to talk about it or if he should just stick to pleasantries until he knows him a bit better, but on the other hand -- he can’t not ask.

“Niall said... Niall told me you can, you know. Do something. Like, a power, or something,” he says slowly, feeling like he’s trying not to spook a kitten.

“Er. I guess,” Zayn says back just as cautiously. “It’s--”

“--No, yeah, if you don’t want to talk about it,” Harry says at the same time, blushing a little. “It’s just...” He stops for a moment, and then reaches over to take the cup of tea out of Zayn’s hands. He wraps his own hands around it, concentrating, and the mug changes from a chipped white to a bright jade green. The tea turns to coffee, and the steam curling off of it starts to sparkle and pop in the air like fireworks. He leaves it like that and pushes it towards Zayn, who peers into it curiously.

“That’s brilliant,” Zayn says quietly. “So you, like--”

“I can change stuff, yeah,” Harry admits, and for the first time he feels a little bashful about what he can do. He reaches over to tap the mug, and it goes back to normal. “Just, like, stuff that’s already there, I can like, change it... physically, I guess. That’s all.”

Zayn considers this. “Mine’s about feelings,” he says after a moment. “I can, like. I can tell how people feel, or make them feel how I do. Stuff like that. Not all the time, I mean. I try... I try not to, unless the other person’s alright with it, just cos it can get a bit weird, you know?”

“Would you show me?” Harry asks. He’s still feeling like they’re in slightly uncertain territory, gets the impression Zayn feels a bit awkward talking about this, but mostly he just feels excited. Zayn hadn’t recoiled when Harry changed the tea, and he’s talking about feeling other people’s emotions like it’s not totally insane, and the relief of it makes Harry’s chest loosen, makes him feel like he could float right up to the ceiling.

Zayn nods and reaches over and wraps his thumb and forefinger loosely around Harry’s wrist. Harry breathes in, not sure what he should be feeling, and on the exhale, he realizes: he feels something else pressing in on him from the outside, a sense of cautious optimism, like he’s not quite sure of something yet but he thinks it’ll end up good. He feels happily nervous about something that’s happening later tonight, although he can’t pinpoint what. He worries that he might be late for work today, which doesn’t make sense, obviously, because he hasn’t got a job yet.

Then it shifts, and he feels panicked, like the walls are crushing in on him, like he needs to get out now, needs to run. Then he’s exhausted, so tired he could sleep for days, and then he’s peaceful and calm, and everything is alright.

Zayn takes his hand off Harry’s wrist, and it all drops away.

“Wow,” Harry says, breathing heavily. “Wow. That was--”

“Me, at first,” says Zayn. “Like, how I’m feeling now. The rest of it was just random stuff. You notice it more when it’s extreme like that.”

Zayn hesitates, and Harry doesn’t need his hand on his wrist to know that he’s a bit anxious to see how Harry reacts.

“It’s brilliant,” Harry says honestly. “Really, Zayn, this is, like. It’s perfect.”

“Really?” Zayn asks, sounding a bit shy. “I dunno many other people who are like, you know. Like us. My sister’s the same as me, and there was another girl at school with us who could make things float, but.”

“D’you know anyone else here?” Harry asks, feeling hopeful, but Zayn shakes his head.

“Just you, now. Why, d’you? Niall?”

“Nah, Niall’s useless. I met one other person when I was young, but. Y’know. It was just in passing.” Harry shrugs. “That’s enough, though, innit? Just you and me.”

“Yeah, alright,” Zayn says, smiling wider, and even though they’re not touching Harry is sure he feels a sense of relief coming off of Zayn so thick he thinks he could touch it. It makes him feel like he’s home.

-

Harry finds a job at bakery down the street after he begs a trial shift from the owner and impresses her by turning a whole sheet of white cake multicolored and peach flavored. It’s a risk, he knows, it always is when he shows off like that, but what’s the point of all this if he can’t _use_ it? And people need multicolored peach cake on demand, he reasons.

Niall finds a gig bartending at a pub nearby, and he sneaks Harry free drinks when he stops by after his shifts. The job ends up paying Niall an inordinate amount of money that Harry figures is directly related to his easy smile and Irish charm, even though the bastard hasn’t been back to Ireland since he was eight, and that was just for a visit.

Between the two of them it almost always covers their share of the rent, and if sometimes Harry has to change a pound note into a tenner, well. No one needs to know about it.

As long as he doesn’t get greedy, is what he tells himself, and he doesn’t. He’s got Niall and Zayn and a flat and a job. He’s happy enough just like this.

-

“Zayn, mate, let’s go out,” he whines. It’s September and he’s off work and even though it’s getting a bit chilly, the sun is shining for once, and he needs to get out of the flat immediately. He’s already driving Zayn mad making the floors turn technicolor and rubbery and threatening to see if he can change the walls enough to make his own bedroom the biggest of the three.

“Bugger off, I’ve got plans,” Zayn says, shoving Harry’s arms from around his neck where he’s draped. Harry feels a twinge of fond annoyance that he knows isn’t his, and he reaches up to ruffle Zayn’s quiff before dodging away from his flailing arms.

“Plans with who? Plans with _Liam_?” Harry asks, and Zayn’s cheeks go pink.

“No, not Liam, if you must know,” Zayn says, trying vainly to fix his hair. “Just a bloke I know.”

“Honestly, Zayn, sneaking around on your boyfriend?” Harry teases. “Our gentle Liam’ll be devastated.”

“He’s not my _boyfriend_ , you twat,” Zayn protests. A little too heartily, in Harry’s opinion, which means he’s lying, which Harry knows anyway. He doesn’t need help from anyone’s magic power to deduce that Zayn’s been mad about Liam for ages. The first time he’d brought Liam around to meet Harry and Niall, Harry had felt such secondhand nervousness that he’d had to excuse himself from the room, because everything he said had felt so awkward and wrong-footed. Also because he had kind of desperately wanted to kiss this bloke he’d just met, which wasn’t necessarily _unusual_ , but he was still pretty sure that was just Zayn projecting. Liam’s quite nice, but he’s not Harry’s type.

“Then who’s this mystery man?” Harry persists, folding into the couch gracelessly and bouncing one leg furiously. He really, _really_ needed to get out of the flat. Even if Zayn won’t come to the pub, he reckons he can beg enough pints off Niall before the dinner rush on his own to distract himself a bit.

“Met him a while ago,” Zayn shrugs. “He was in a class with me at uni.”

“Well bring him _along_ then,” Harry whines, and he’s knows it’s not dignified, but can’t help himself. “Come on, Zayn, I’m bored, and if you and this mate of yours don’t distract me I’ll redecorate the whole flat in shades of pink and turn all our furniture into oversized poufs. And I know how you feel about that sofa, Zayn, you’re well attached.”

“Christ, fine,” Zayn relents. “I’ll bring him round to the pub in an hour or so, then, if you want to meet us there.”

“Cheers,” Harry says, beaming a smile and bouncing to his feet before he presses a sloppy kiss into Zayn’s cheek.

“Get off, you tosser, or I’ll change my mind,” Zayn says, but Harry grabs his jacket and heads out the front door before any of the threats that follow can land on him.

It’s a truly gorgeous day, he thinks to himself as he walks the long way to the pub. He misses Holmes Chapel once in a while, and his mum a bit more often, but London really is massive and spectacular, especially in the sun. He whistles while he walks and pulls the cuffs of his jacket down over his hands, which feel full of possibility.

-

Harry’s had two pints and something pink with an elaborate frilly garnish on it (“an experiment,” Niall had called it) by the time Zayn and his mate are due to show up. He’s been misshaping all the glasses he empties, turning the first glass short and squat, the second impossibly thin and tall, and the third into an obscene shape that Niall smashes in a very dubious accident before anyone can get a good look at it. Niall keeps threatening to chuck him out if he doesn’t stop ruining all the glassware in the building, but he also keeps throwing his head back with laughter, so Harry’s not too fussed.

“Zayn’ll be around soon,” he says as soon as Niall comes back from filling him another glass. This time it’s water, he notes disappointedly. “Said he’s bringing a mate of his from Uni.” Harry drums his fingers on the bar happily. Niall starts to tell him a story from his last shift, and Harry’s half listening, half thinking about how lovely the sun has been, hoping it doesn’t piss down rain again tomorrow. Harry wonders, sometimes, if there’s someone out there who can change the weather, make it sunny when they’re happy and rainy when they’re feeling tired or cozy or hungover.

He’d tried, once, thought that maybe since the weather was already there, he’d be allowed to change it, but nothing happened except he’d given himself a headache trying.

He’s thinking about that, and how if there is someone in charge of the weather they must be a bleak sort given how often it’s rained lately, save for today, when the door to the pub opens, and Zayn enters, with another boy trailing behind him, and --

\-- and Harry drops the straw he’d been fiddling with, because it’s Louis. He hasn’t seen Louis in eight years and even then it had just been an afternoon, and yet he’s absolutely certain this is the same boy who made a coin appear in his hand that day in the meadow. He’s thought about him enough since then, wondered where he’d gotten to, and now there he was, right there, in a preposterous striped shirt and pastel trousers.

 _He’s well fit_ , Harry thinks unbidden as the two of them cross over to where he’s sitting, and before he can start to imagine how Louis got here of all places, he lets himself look, just for a second, at Louis hair, which is still mussed and pushed up at all angles, and his arms, which seem very strong from where Harry’s seated. He’s just got to Louis’ jawline when they’re there, standing next to him.

“Lads,” Zayn says, nodding, “this is my mate from school --”

“Louis,” Harry finishes for him, and he hadn’t realized he’d stood up, but he has, and has apparently also stepped nearer to them, because he and Louis are quite close now.

“Sorry?” Louis asks, frowning a little in confusion.

“D’you two know each other?” Zayn asks warily.

Harry starts to say “Yes, from ages ago,” at the same time that Louis says “No, sorry, I don’t think so,” and he clamps his sentence off. Maybe Louis forgot about him, he thinks, and for some reason the thought makes him bite down on his lip unhappily. It’d make sense if he had, it had been years ago, but still. Harry didn’t think he’d ever be able to forget Louis if he’d tried. He’d been -- well, nevermind.

“I think we met a while ago,” he says, this time more carefully. “Like, our parents knew each other, I think? You’re Louis, yeah?”

“Yeah, no, that’s me,” Louis agrees. “I’m sorry, though, if that happened...” He gestures apologetically.

Harry notices, though, that he looks nervous for some reason.

“You came to visit me and my mum in Holmes Chapel once.” He thinks maybe he should drop the topic, but he can’t. He needs Louis to remember.

“Think you must be thinking of someone else, mate,” Louis says apologetically. “Never been anywhere called Holmes Chapel.”

Harry frowns. Maybe he’s wrong? Maybe this is just a boy who looks a lot like someone he met once a long time ago. But, then, that doesn’t explain how Harry had known his name the first moment he’d seen him. Harry knows, deep down and with certainty, that this is his Louis.

“Sorry,” he says, taking a step back. “Just, you look a lot like someone I used to know.” The lie feels wrong in his mouth.

“No worries,” Louis says, smiling, friendly enough, and they stand there for a moment quietly while Zayn peers back and forth between them.

Niall, with unusually good timing, plunks down three pints on the bar next to them, and it’s enough to break the awkward silence.

-

“Honestly, I thought he was going to fall over when I introduced him to Liam the first time,” Louis is saying around his pint. Apparently he’s how Zayn knows Liam, and as a result he’s got a whole arsenal of stories that center around Zayn embarrassing himself when they’re near each other. “So, like, Zayn’s absolutely _frozen_ , I swear, I thought he was going to piss himself he looked so terrified --” Louis stops to throw his head back and laugh, and the smile that lights up his face makes Harry feel the need to douse himself in cold water so he can get a grip, if only for a minute. It’s just. Louis is very confusing, he’s acting so normal even though Harry knows it’s not, and then there’s his stupid smile and his stupid hair which are both actually quite beautiful, and Harry thinks he’s never been more confused by someone so good looking. It’s very disconcerting.

“Alright, yeah, that’s enough of that story, I think,” Zayn interrupts.

“No, c’mon, I want to hear how this tale ends,” Harry says, forcing himself to smile. He can play along, if he needs to.

“All I did was say hi and leave,” Zayn says, pouting a bit.

“Mate, you stammered for about twenty years and then ran out of the room,” Louis said. “Thought _I_ might piss myself, he was making me so nervous all second-hand like, and I’ve known Liam since I was twelve.”

“Well, he’s just very good looking and I didn’t expect it, alright? And anyway, I’m better now,” Zayn says petulantly, and Harry and Louis pull twin skeptical faces. Niall loses it at that, goes absolutely red in the face with laughter.

“Sorry,” Niall apologizes, looking the least sorry that anyone has ever looked. “It’s just, you know.” He doesn’t finish that thought, just shakes his head some more, still laughing.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working or something?” Zayn asks, scowling. “Go fetch us another pint, then.” Niall does, but Harry hears him saying “classic, absolutely classic” under his breath as he does.

“Shit, though, what time is it?” Louis asks, pulling his mobile out of his pocket. “I’ve got to go, got a shift to cover in a bit. Thanks for the pints, lads.”

“Thanks for humiliating me in return,” Zayn says, but Harry can feel that he’s not too terribly put out, and Louis must too, because he’s grinning in that way he always seems to be. He squeezes Zayn’s shoulder as he stands, and Harry suddenly feels panicked. He knows he can’t just let Louis walk away.

“I’ll come with you,” Harry says, standing so fast he almost knocks over his chair.

“Oh. Er.” Louis falters, and Harry thinks he sees his easy smile flicker a bit. “I mean, you don’t have to, I’m all right--”

“Nah, m’heading that way anyway,” Harry says, even though he actually has no idea which way he means.

“Alright, later,” Zayn says distractedly, still scowling at Niall as he snatches away the pint he’s brought him.

“Really, you don’t...” Louis says, trailing off as Harry follows him out of the pub.

“No, look, it’s fine,” Harry says. They push through the doors to the patio, where the sun’s still shining, coming in all slanty and thick in the late afternoon haze. “I just, I need to ask you something.”

Louis stops and turns to face him with a frown like he knows what Harry’s about to say.

“Look, I’m really sorry if you think I’m someone else, but--”

“No, that’s rubbish,” Harry says firmly, shoving his hair out of his eyes. “I know you.”

“You don’t,” Louis protests, but it sounds weaker this time.

“How do I know your name, then?” Harry asks, reaching out to grab hold of Louis’ wrist like he’s afraid he might run away.

Louis shrugs. “Lots of people called Louis.”

“C’mon, Lou. We’ve met. I know who you are.” Harry stops, looks around the pavement where they’re standing a little wildly. “I know what you can _do_.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Louis says, delicately untangling Harry’s fingers from around his wrist. “I can’t _do_ anything.”

“You can,” Harry breathes, “I’ve seen it.” Louis doesn’t respond, seems frozen to the spot.

“Look,” Harry continues, and he rummages through his pockets for a piece of paper. He pulls out a crumpled receipt for Tesco, and with another glance around, concentrates, focuses on the paper until it folds itself up into an origami crane. Louis stares at him still, silent.

“You have to remember,” Harry says, and it almost feels like begging. “So, like, just. Text me if you do, alright?” He touches the paper crane and his mobile number appears on its side in careful little numbers. “Just. Text me, or ring me, or something.” He presses the crane into Louis’ hands, who holds it for a moment without saying anything.

“Alright,” he finally says softly. “If I remember.”

And then he goes, walking off in the opposite direction. Harry watches him until he turns a corner, and he’s still holding onto the crane.

-

“Can I ask you something?” he asks Zayn that night when the three of them are piled onto the sofa watching a DVD. Niall’s face is buried against Harry’s arm where he’s snoring, dead asleep. “Did you, like, see what Louis was feeling back at the pub?”

“I wasn’t really looking, mate, sorry.” Zayn reaches over to steal the popcorn Harry’s got balanced on his lap.

“Right, but. You didn’t, like, think he seemed like he was maybe... lying about something?”

“Could’ve been, I suppose. Figured he was just nervous because you were staring at him like a mental.”

Harry thinks about telling him everything, but stops. He can’t figure out why Louis might have lied, so he decides to stay quiet until he does. “Could’ve sworn we’d met before,” he says instead.

“Why would he lie about something like that?” Zayn asks, looking dubious.

“Dunno,” Harry says, forcing himself to sound carefree. “Reckon he probably fell in love with my dashing good looks and didn’t want to admit how he’s pined for me all these years.”

“Prat,” Zayn laughs, and upends the popcorn in the process of trying to smack Harry with a throw pillow.

Besides them, Niall keeps snoring.

-

Harry manages to wait a full week before he steals Zayn’s mobile to find Louis’ number. Frankly, he’s a bit impressed with himself that he held out for so long.

He texts Louis that night: _hey lou its harry, havent heard from u yet. hope youve remembered me? we could meet 4 a pint or smthng if it might help jog ur memory... x_

Louis doesn’t respond for two days, and when he does, it’s 4 am on a Tuesday, and the buzz of Harry’s mobile jolts him awake from where he’d fallen asleep in front of the television with his mouth open. The message just reads:

_maybe_

Harry doesn’t know which that means, that Louis has maybe remembered him, or that maybe they can meet sometime, but he figures it’s a start.

-

He doesn’t hear from Louis for several more weeks, though. Zayn meets up with him once, and Harry had been tempted to cling on to Zayn and force him to bring him along, but he figures that might be a bit undignified. Anyway, it’s probably best to let Louis handle this all in his own time.

But by the time October starts and he still hasn’t heard a thing, he’s beginning to feel fidgety and desperate, concocting all these plans that involve finding where Louis works, showing up there, and refusing to leave until Louis admits he remembers him, or at least snogs him a bit. It’s not the most intricate or clever plans, and certainly not the most dignified, but it’s the best he can come up with.

“You’ve got to stop _feeling_ things about him, mate, it’s driving me mad,” Zayn finally says at breakfast one day.

“Who?” Niall asks, look perplexed. There’s a bit of milk running down his chin as he shovels Weetabix into his mouth, and Harry rolls his eyes. “C’mon, silent conversations, no fair,” Niall whines.

“Louis,” says Zayn with a put-up sigh of exasperation.

“Your mate from uni?” Niall asks, still looking confused. “The one from the pub? What about him?”

“Harry’s _obsessed_ with him,” Zayn says, rolling his eyes. “‘Where’s Louis, I wonder what’s Louis doing, isn’t Louis’ hair beautiful, I wonder what conditioner he uses,’” he imitates. “You should be glad you can’t tell how he feels about his arse, it’s positively filthy.”

“That’s only some of the time,” Harry protests half-heartedly. “And what, you can read my thoughts now, too?”

“It’s clear enough,” Zayn says grimly, raising his eyebrows.

He’s a bit glad that the only bits of his preoccupation with Louis that Zayn’s noticed are the ones that make him sound like a little girl with a crush, honestly, or at least that Zayn isn’t mentioning the undercurrent of confusion and desperation and the slight sting of rejection that’s always at the back of his head when he thinks about Louis. He doesn’t think he could explain properly what exactly it is between him and Louis, why he’s been thinking about Louis for so long now -- he can’t even properly explain it to himself, honestly.

“D’you just want me to give you his number, then?” Zayn offers.

“Nah, no need,” Harry says, feeling a bit guilty for already having it programmed into his own mobile. Zayn’s eyes narrow at him.

“Because you’ve already nicked it out of my mobile, yeah?”

Sometimes Zayn is eerily astute for someone who pays so little attention to most things. “Can’t a man have any secrets around here?” Harry protests, flopping across the table and nearly upending his tea.

“Sorry, mate,” Zayn replies, sounding vastly not sorry. “You’re an open book.”

-

So Harry tries to pull it back a bit, because possibly Zayn’s right: it’s a _bit_ much to be so preoccupied with someone he’s only met twice. But still, Harry thinks that there’s something more to it, that he was meant to meet Louis again and not just for them to go their separate ways.

But at least for the sake of his dignity when Zayn’s around, he tries to stifle it. Fortunately, it turns out that of the two of them, Zayn is vastly more pathetic than Harry, which distracts them all for several days when Zayn finally kisses Liam, and then suffers a meltdown about it that causes them all to end up rather pissed on the floor of their kitchen in solidarity at half two on a Thursday afternoon.

“I’ve ruined it,” Zayn moans.

“Don’t be daft,” Harry says, patting at Zayn’s arm uselessly.

“Why would you _do_ that?” Niall asks unhelpfully, groping into the open fridge for another lager without standing up. Harry tries to look stern, but thinks it might come off more nauseous than anything.

“I don’t know,” Zayn whines, pillowing his head in his arms in a fit of despair. “I just -- I kissed him, and then I apologized? And then I ran. I left him in Sainsbury’s.” He shakes his head. “Near the biscuits. I’m a _disaster_.”

“S’true,” Niall agrees, prompting Harry to kick him hard on the ankle. “Ow, shite, _what_? I’m just sayin.’”

“Well, don’t,” Harry says. “Have you tried, like, calling him?” he asks Zayn.

“No. He probably won’t ever want to talk to me again.” Zayn punctuates this with a long drag from his lager. “And, like, even if he did, what am I going to say? ‘Sorry for that time I kissed you and then ran off like a prat?’ ‘Sides, if I tried I’d just end up running off again and leaving him in Tesco or something.”

Harry can’t think of any practical advice, so he just nods sympathetically.

“Zayn, mate, come on, you’re being properly stupid about this,” Niall says, like they’re both missing some crucial factor in this crisis. “Isn’t it obvious how to fix it?”

Harry and Zayn just look puzzled, and Niall exhales, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. “Superpowers are absolutely wasted on both of you twats. You can _show people your emotions_ , Zayn. Just, like, grab hold of him and show him exactly how sorry you are and exactly how much you fancy him and want to snog him and have his babies. S’that easy.”

“Dunno if it quite works like that,” Harry says.

“What, the powers?”

“The babies, I mean.”

“For fuck’s sake, you know what I mean. Honestly, Zayn, you’ve nothing to lose at this point, since you’ve already abandoned the poor man in a shop. At least show him that you’re acting like a twat cos you’re in love, not cos you’re actually a twat.”

Harry feels slightly concerned, because Niall’s actually making quite a bit of sense, and that’s rarely a good sign.

“I mean, can’t you tell how he feels about you anyway?” Niall continues.

“I don’t _look_ ,” says Zayn, sounding a bit affronted. “Like, I mean, I know he’s _fond_ of me, but that’s obvious, else he wouldn’t be hanging around me in the first place. That doesn’t mean he wants me, like -- like that.” The tips of his ears go red at this, and he buries his head in his arms again, looking pitiful.

“I’ll ring him, then,” Niall says gleefully, and before Zayn can stop him, he’s got Zayn’s mobile out of the pocket of his trousers and is presumably dialling Liam. He locks himself into his bedroom, and when he comes out several minutes later, he’s grinning like a maniac. “You’ve got a date with him tonight,” he informs Zayn. “Like, a proper date.”

“A proper date,” Zayn repeats weakly, sounding like he may faint.

“You can shower me with thanks later, then.”

-

Somehow, though, Niall’s plan must have worked, because Zayn doesn’t come back to the flat that night, and he’s not around when Harry gets home after work the next day either. In fact, he doesn’t see Zayn for two more days, until he comes home and finds him on the sofa, wrapped around Liam with his mouth on his neck and his hand up his jumper.

“Oh, shit,” Zayn says, and Liam blushes so intensely that Harry honestly can’t help himself from laughing.

“Carry on, then,” he says, conspicuously covering his eyes with his hand and stumbling down the hall to his room. “I’ll just be in here. With headphones in and my music turned up very loudly, so. As you were.”

He’s still laughing a bit to himself when he collapses into his bed and pulls out his mobile, and when he does, there’s a new message on it. It’s from Louis. Harry emphatically does _not_ let his pulse race as he reads it.

_could we meet up? busy 2moro?_

There’s another afterward:

_this is louis, by the way_

Harry forces himself not to respond immediately with a string of x’s and exclamation marks, and takes a moment to compose himself enough to respond like a reasonably sane person.

_yeah, im free after 6. fancy coming to mine? or the pub, maybe?_

His thumb hovers over ‘send’ for a moment, hoping he’s making the right tactical move. He can’t imagine Louis wants to meet up to basically tell him to fuck off -- he could have carried on ignoring him if that’s what he’d wanted. Still, he tries not to get his hopes up as he presses send. Thankfully for his nerves, Louis responds right away.

_yours is good, ill c u then._

And before Harry can respond, another message comes in: _& sry ive been such a twat n taken so long_

_its fine, dont worry :) u need directions?_

_nah, ive been around b4 w/ zayn. tomorrow, yeah? x_

Harry smiles. His hopes aren’t up, he tries to tell himself, but before he can think better of it, he responds, _cant wait. xx_

-

Somehow he manages to not go _completely_ out of his mind the next day, even though he feels nervous and excited and a bit sick like he’s got a date or something. He forces Niall to go out and eat a curry with him after he’s done at the bakery and before Niall’s due at the pub just to keep himself occupied, which makes Niall suspicious, but Harry buys dinner, which distracts Niall well enough. Eventually Niall leaves for the pub, and Harry forces himself to walk back to the flat and sit still and watch the telly, resolutely not getting up to tidy like he vaguely feels he ought to.

He still nearly jumps out of his skin when Louis knocks, though.

“Hey,” he says when he answers. He’d been hoping for something a bit more suave than that, but figures it’ll do.

“Hey,” Louis responds, and distantly, Harry appreciates that at least Louis hadn’t had a particularly cool opening line either. “Can I, er. Come in?”

“Right, yeah, of course,” Harry says, stepping aside quickly to pull the door open the rest of the way.

“Where’s Zayn?” Louis asks, glancing around the flat.

“Liam’s. Says he won’t be back,” Harry says, grinning a bit despite himself. “Come in, though.” He shuffles out of the way awkwardly to let Louis through the doorway. He comes through but stops short, like he doesn’t want to come too far in so he can run away with ease if he needs to. Harry really, really doesn’t want Louis to run away, so he nods towards the kitchen. “D’you want tea? I’ve got the kettle on.”

“Yeah, alright,” Louis agrees, cautiously pulling the door shut behind him as he follows Harry towards the kitchen. He pulls off his hat and coat and sits silently at the table while Harry gathers their cups of tea, and stays that way for a moment as they sit across from each other.

“Look. Alright, look,” Louis starts. “I lied. I remember you.”

“I know.”

Louis twists his mug around in his hands and stays quiet for so long that Harry thinks he’s going to have to say something first, but really, he wants Louis to talk, wants to hear what he has to say.

“The thing is,” Louis continues. “Nobody knows. Like, what I can do. So I couldn’t admit I knew you, right? Or else Zayn would’ve asked, and I’d have had to explain it, and I just really, really didn’t want to. Not then. Possibly not ever?” He runs a hand through his hair and it sticks up in several different directions at once.

“But why not?” Harry asks.

“Have you never had anyone react badly to it?” Louis asks, a little sharply, but then he takes a breath and continues in a softer voice. “Have you never had anyone call you nasty things or try to take advantage of you or any of the other ways it can go wrong?”

Harry’s a little caught, because no, not really. He knows people who are uncomfortable with it when he changes things, but that’s on them, he’s always figured. There’d been a few boys in primary school who’d teased him a bit, but he’d just assumed his mum was right and it was only jealousy. His mum and Niall had always made him feel like if he wasn’t necessarily _normal_ , it was only because was special. He’d never even thought about what it might be like to be ashamed of something that was so intensely part of him.

So he doesn’t answer, and eventually Louis says, “You’re lucky, then. It’s awful.”

“D’you--” Harry starts, but Louis shakes his head.

“No, it’s fine, it’s just. That’s why.”

“But you could’ve told Zayn, surely?” Harry asks. “He would’ve understood better than anyone.”

Louis shifts across from him. “Zayn’s got a sister that can do the same thing as him, did you know?” He says it conversationally, like he’s changing the subject, but Harry suspects he has his reasons, so he stays quiet and waits for Louis to continue. “Well, like. It’s kind of genetic, I guess.”

Harry hadn’t known that, but he doesn’t think that’s the point right now. “So someone in your family, then?” he asks instead.

Louis nods stiffly, once. “The difference,” he says slowly, “is that Zayn and Waliyha use it whenever they like. And their parents think it’s brilliant. I met them once. They’re so _proud_ of them.”

“But it’s not like that for you,” Harry guesses.

“They very much want me to be normal,” Louis continues. “Which I tried quite hard to be, but. ‘M’not.”

Harry remembers Louis’ parents, sitting stiff-backed on the sofa in his sitting room when he was eight. Louis’ mum’s voice had been gentle when she’d suggested they go off to play together. They hadn’t seemed like they’d been ashamed of Louis’ ability, probably wouldn’t have brought him to meet Harry if they had been. Possibly they were a bit uncomfortable, but Harry doesn’t think that’s enough to explain how sad Louis sounds now, even just talking about them in hints. He wonders what must have changed, but doesn’t think he’d better ask.

“So he wouldn’t understand. Not really.” Louis stands up to take his half-empty cup over to the sink, and he stays there for a moment, bracing himself on the edge of the counter. After a moment he brushes his hands together and moves across the flat to sit on the sofa.

“I might not understand exactly either,” Harry says slowly, following him across the room to sit next to him, “but, like. I can try. I do know what it’s like to feel _different_ , you know. I never knew anyone like me, y’know. Not until Zayn. You were the only one I ever met.”

“Really?” Louis asks, drawing his knees up towards his chest and leaning towards Harry a bit. “No one else in your family, or, like. At school?”

Harry shakes his head and tries not to feel a little jealous. Louis might have known others but it doesn’t mean he’d had any easier a go of it than Harry. “It was only ever just me.”

“That’d be hard, I’d think,” Louis says, and somehow they’re closer, now, their thighs nearly touching.

“I mean. I had Niall and some other mates. It was fine.”

“But not the same?”

Harry shakes his head. “Not the same. But then I met Zayn, so.” He runs his thumb idly over one of the cushions and it ripples iridescent before going back to normal. Louis looks at it, and then at Harry, almost curiously. It’s a bit odd, Harry thinks, because that’s usually the way people look when they see him do it for the first time and are still a bit disbelieving of the whole thing. He doesn’t expect it from Louis, who can do something even more impressive. And then Harry realizes that he hasn’t seen Louis make anything appear yet, not today or back at the pub, which isn’t so odd, but it’s hard for Harry to imagine being able to hold it back all the time. His mum always teases him that he can’t go more than an hour without mucking with something, which isn’t entirely untrue, even if half the time he does it without thinking.

“You can still do it, yeah?” Harry asks. He hasn’t ever heard of anyone losing their powers before, but there probably aren’t hard and fast rules with something so unknown and nebulous. Maybe if you start to resent it, eventually it leaves you.

“‘Course I can,” Louis responds, sounding a little put off. “Could you ever forget how to change things?”

“No,” Harry answers, and it’s true, he couldn’t. Whatever it is that makes him change things, it’s deep down in his bones.

Louis just sighs, and idly flicks his wrist so several tiny dice appear, clattering on the coffee table. They all land on sixes. After a moment he passes his hand over them, and when he pulls back, they’re gone.

“You can disappear stuff, too?” Harry asks, and he knows he shouldn’t really be surprised by something like that at this point, but he is, a little.

“Yeah, I mean. It’s just doing it in reverse, sort of. Anyway it’s a good thing too or I’d have a flat filled to the ceiling with rubbish I’ve made appear. Although.” He looks a little self conscious, suddenly. “Some of it I end up giving away. Like, to charities. Homeless and battered women and the like, that sort of thing.” He shrugs. “Dunno. Helps me feel like I’m doing something besides rubbish parlour tricks.”

“It’s not rubbish, Lou,” Harry protests. He reaches over to where Louis’ fingers are flexing uncomfortably and twists their last two fingers together. Harry doesn’t have to be Zayn to understand how uncomfortable Louis is talking about what he can do. He ought to let it drop, probably, but he hates hearing Louis talk like this, like he’s not anything special. “You can do something _brilliant_ , something that loads of people would love to do. And you don’t brag about it, and you haven’t filled your house with sports cars and piles of money, and you give it away to _charity_. That’s better than... that’s the best thing I ever heard.”

“Yeah?” Louis asks, like he doesn’t quite believe it.

“Yeah.”

“Hm. Well. Can’t do sports cars anyway,” Louis says, but there’s a smile curling up the corner of his mouth as he does. “Too big. Gives me a massive headache trying anything like that.” He leans in cautiously, his shoulder pressing up against Harry’s so their tangled-up hands are trapped awkwardly between them. Harry tries to force his heart not to stutter, but Louis is just -- he’s right there, and Harry had spent so long thinking he’d never see him again and now he’s _there_ , touching, his cheeks still a little pink from the chill outside. Something about Louis glows, fits up next to Harry like a missing piece, and Harry wants to wrap himself around him and not let go, so when Louis leans his head over to rest on Harry’s shoulder, he does. He’s not sure how Louis will react, but he leans in immediately, letting Harry pull him back so they’re cuddled into the corner of the sofa, Louis’ back pressed to Harry’s chest.

“We’ll work on sports cars, then,” Harry murmurs, and Louis snorts out a laugh.

“There are penalties for greed, you know,” Louis warns jokingly. His voice is steadier, closer to that carefree one Harry had heard the day in the pub, when Louis had been all charm and big gestures that had Niall doubled over laughing. Harry thinks that the real Louis must be somewhere between the two, able to take up a room with his laugh and still be quiet and soft like he is now.

“M’glad I found you again,” Harry says, pressing his face into Louis’ hair.

“Me too,” says Louis. He toys with the hem of Harry’s shirt idly, and Harry can feel him relaxing by increments, folding in towards Harry more and more the longer they lay like that. “And, like. For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry I lied about knowing you.” He pauses to take a breath. “I’d have known you anywhere.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that, not sure there’s words for the way his chest swells up like something too big is blooming inside of it, so he just curls Louis in closer and lets his eyes drift closed. Louis is soft and his hair smells like satsumas and Harry might only have met him three times in his life but it feels familiar all the same. He lets himself drift into it, half asleep in the mostly dark flat, Louis anchored solidly next to him.

“Should probably go,” Louis says after a bit, but he doesn’t move to untangle himself from Harry.

“Mm, it’s late,” Harry protests. He’d meant to say something more convincing, because he doesn’t want Louis to leave, possibly ever, but his brain is all foggy and he feels on the verge of falling asleep and staying that way for a very long time, and he thinks if Louis tries to leave he might have to chase him down the hallway. “Stay.”

Louis doesn’t answer for a moment, and then he finally says “Yeah, okay.” He moves to toe off his trainers, and then leans back into Harry. Harry pulls one of the thick knit blankets over them, presses closer to Louis, and breathes in.

-

When Harry wakes the next morning Louis is gone, but he’s laid the blanket over Harry where he’s still curled up on the sofa. There’s a note on the coffee table.

_sorry to run, work at half eight :( meet up tonight? feel like i owe you a pint at least to make up all the lying and dodging you for months and drooling all over you in my sleep (soz) business, so my treat, yeah?_

_xxx L_

Next to the paper there’s a little glass shape like an oversized diamond, clear and multifaceted, all smooth sides and angles. Harry holds it up to his eye, watching the room splinter in a kaleidoscope of colors. It turns the whole room into stars. He knows he’s never seen it before, but he has a good idea of where it came from.

-

He spends the rest of the day feeling antsy and cooped up. The weather’s turned rotten again, all dark clouds and biting cold, and it’s still only October, which Harry doesn’t think bodes well for the coming winter. He wants to go find Louis, thinking of a million questions he wants to ask him (when did you first make something appear, and what was it, and how does it feel?) and a million things he wants to tell him (I thought about you all the time, really, and you’re quite brilliant, and you hair is bloody ridiculous), and it makes him feel restless and irritable not to be able to.

By the afternoon, he’s feeling properly out of sorts, and the cold rain spitting down sideways and rattling the windows doesn’t help. Something Louis had said sticks in the back of his mind, and for lack of anything better to do, he finds himself ringing his mum.

“Is it genetic?” he asks when she picks up. She hesitates before she responds.

“You should -- you should ask your father about that,” is all she says when she does reply. “I don’t know much about it, really, just that it happens sometimes, and usually when you’ve got someone else in your family who can do something too. Your father’d know better than I do.”

“Right, yeah,” Harry says. He doesn’t know what he’d wanted to hear -- maybe an explanation of the biology behind it all, if there is any, or maybe a denial, that no, there’s no explaining it, that it’s a fluke, or even.... even just for his mum to laugh and say _what does it matter, love, you’re how you are and you’re perfect_ like she used to. He’s not sure what he’d wanted to hear, but that wasn’t it. He doesn’t _want_ to ask his dad, who fucked off before he can even remember, before he even changed that first drawing of a lion. It’s not like they haven’t spoken since -- his dad sends cards for Christmas and calls on his birthday to say hello, but that’s it, and that’s been quite enough, in Harry’s opinion.

He hangs up still feeling agitated, and wishes he hadn’t asked.

-

It turns out that Louis actually lives quite close. Harry overestimates how long it’ll take him to walk there, and ends up being a half hour earlier than he’d meant to be. Still, Louis had texted him his address several hours ago, so he must be home from work by now, and Harry doesn’t want to skulk around outside his building like a thief, so he knocks on the door and bites on his thumb until Louis answers.

“Oh,” Louis says, looking a bit surprised, although not unpleasantly so, Harry thinks. Or at least, he hopes. “Sorry, hey, just got out of the shower,” Louis explains. His hair is still damp, all soft around his ears and far less defiant than Harry’s ever seen it. Louis is barefoot, curling his toes into the carpet and fiddling with a hole in the cuff of his too-big jumper. Harry is filled with something warm and fond and can’t think of anything to say that will come out in actual, proper words, so he just smiles and follows Louis inside when he says “Come in, then, it’s freezing.”

Louis’ flat is small and full of odds and ends, all photographs and hard-bound books and stacks of notebooks and loose paper on the kitchen counters. The moment Harry comes in, he feels all the agitation of the day and his unsatisfying conversation with his mum lift off him. It’s all one room, a bed shoved over in the corner piled with mismatched blankets and clothes. There’s a low bookcase that separates the sitting area from the bed, and it’s overflowing with things like playing cards and loose buttons and an old-looking globe. There’s not a single thing in the flat Harry would change.

“S’not much to look at, but,” Louis says, shrugging like he thinks he ought to be properly self-deprecating about it all, and before he can stop himself, Harry is closing the distance between them and kissing Louis firmly. Louis makes a slightly startled noise, but he doesn’t pull back, and once Harry’s almost positive Louis won’t shove him off or punch him for it, he carefully moves in closer to rest a hand on Louis’ waist.

“Hi,” he finally says as he pulls back from Louis.

“Hi,” Louis repeats a bit weakly, but there’s a smile on the corners of his mouth.

“Er, sorry, is this -- this is alright?” Harry asks, because he’s only just realized that he’s essentially barged into a stranger’s home and snogged him without saying anything by way of introduction, which is possibly not how normal people behave.

“No, yeah, I mean,” Louis says. “Yes. Fine. Definitely more than fine, it’s. Good?”

“Good,” says Harry, “because I think I’ve been meaning to do it for ages.”

“You’ve only just met me a few weeks ago,” Louis protests, but it sounds like he can’t quite make himself mean the words.

“Yeah, well.”

“Know what you mean, though,” Louis continues, and he breathes out like it’s taken something out of him to admit it. “Plus that’s not really true, is it? Known me almost a decade, I reckon.”

Harry kisses him again, and only stops when Louis presses him backwards, nudging him towards the bed.

“Aren’t you meant to be buying me a pint?” Harry murmurs, not bothering to pull very far away from Louis, pressing kisses against his lips between words.

“Could, if you like,” Louis says, grinning at Harry and running a thumb over his hip. “Or.”

“Or,” Harry repeats.

“Or we stay here,” Louis continues, quieter this time.

Harry doesn’t respond, instead sinking down to sit on the edge of the bed. Louis stands over him, considering for a moment, and then sits beside him, pulling him in to kiss him again, tasting the heat of Harry's mouth and sliding an arm around his waist to pull him in.

“You’ve still got your coat on,” Louis says suddenly, laughing a bit, and Harry realizes he’s right, not to mention his boots and scarf and hat. He laughs too, yanking the beanie off his head and unwinding his scarf.

“M’overdressed,” he admits, and Louis grins as he leans down and starts to unbutton Harry’s coat.

“I know how to fix that.” His hand flicks the last button and he presses the coat off Harry’s shoulders, and hesitates for a moment before reaching up to start on his button-down shirt as well. When he finishes he pauses, and Harry reaches down to pull off his boots.

He knows how this goes, but suddenly he feels off his footing, out of his element. But Louis moves surely, cautious but purposeful as he presses Harry’s shirt off his shoulders before pulling his own jumper over his head, and leans in to kiss Harry in between, first gently and then more insistently. And it’s just, god, it’s _Louis_ and it feels different and familiar and terrifying and perfect all at once.

“You’re gorgeous,” Louis says, all low and reverent. Harry tries not to laugh because really, all of a sudden it seems impossible, impossible that he found Louis and impossible that now he’s calling Harry gorgeous when obviously Louis is the gorgeous one, impossible that Louis is shirtless and thumbing at the button of Harry’s trousers before peeling them, along with his pants, down his thighs.

But Harry’s been doing impossible things all of his life, he realizes, so really, this isn’t so different after all. “C’mere,” he says to Louis. Louis pulls off his own trousers as well, and Harry tries not to stare at the expanses of Louis’ skin, soft and endless. He wants to lick it all, press his fingers into every inch of it, but he doesn’t know where to start, so he settles for leaning back, and pulling Louis over him.

Louis hesitates only for a moment before he slides his hands down Harry’s bare sides, skirting his stomach and trailing down his hips. He leans towards Harry to press his lips against Harry’s neck, sucking a lovebite at the corner of his jaw while Harry gasps. He wants to pretend he’ll last but he knows it’s not likely, not with how bad he’s aching for Louis to touch him and how fast his pulse his racing.

Louis leans back from Harry, kneeling carefully around Harry’s hips. “Yeah?” he asks, a little nervous-sounding.

“Yeah, God,” Harry breathes, leaning up to follow Louis and press another kiss onto his lips. “Yeah.” And then Louis shifts, presses up against Harry so their cocks line up, and Harry feels frantic and he’s arching his back and rolling his hips and then Louis’ hand somehow finds him, jerks him off and before he can even worry that he’s going to collapse in on himself like a supernova he comes, breathing hard, Louis not far behind him.

“Christ,” he says after he more or less gets his breath, pulling Louis down next to him. Louis fits his head against the curve of Harry’s neck like the spot’s made just for him. "I mean really, good lord."

Louis laughs, and sparks fly out of his fingertips, just for a second. Harry presses his thumbs into Louis’ hips, his chests, smiling as the lines of his fingerprints darken and stain Louis’ skin like ink before fading. Harry kisses Louis, and Louis smiles into his mouth, and Harry kisses him some more, doesn’t stop.

-

“It’s not just me, is it,” Louis asks later as they’re curled together on his bed. “You feel this too?”

“I feel it,” Harry agrees, pressing a kiss onto Louis’ collarbone, his chest, his sternum.

“Soon as I saw you,” Louis starts. “It was -- like I’ve been looking for you all this time without really knowing it.” He threads his fingers carefully through Harry’s hair. “Is that terribly cliched?”

“A bit, probably, but it was the same for me, so.” Harry shrugs.

“C’mere, then,” Louis says softly, pulling Harry towards him so he can kiss him gently on the lips. “Stay here tonight. Don’t wanna let you get away again.”

“Not going anywhere,” Harry assures him, and he’s not. This is exactly where he wants to be. The weather’s still rubbish, anyway, and Louis is warm.

-

After that, Harry can’t help himself from spending every moment he can with Louis. He knows it might be a bit much to text Louis twelve times in one work shift -- and his boss seems to find it excessive too, if her glaring is indicative -- but he suddenly feels the ten years he’d been without Louis acutely, and wants to make up for them.

He goes straight from his shifts at the bakery to the cafe Louis works in, sitting on the counter and telling Louis all sorts of things -- things about his mum, and Holmes Chapel, and how miserable Zayn is in the morning except less so now that Liam’s always around in the morning too, and anything else he thinks Louis might like to hear. They go to Niall’s pub together afterward, and Zayn usually shows up with Liam in tow.

Louis tells him plenty, too, about his classes and his coworkers and occasionally funny stories about his sisters, but there are certain things he won’t talk about. He won’t talk about his parents, or what happened between them. He barely talks about what he can do, although he makes things appear regularly enough when he needs to. Harry wants to ask, wants to know what had happened to make Louis think he’d be better off pretending not to be special when he so clearly is. He knows it’s something to do with Louis’ parents, but any time they even come near the issue, Louis goes silent. “S’nothing to tell, honestly,” he insists. Harry doesn’t believe him, but lets it go.

It’s fast, Harry knows, but really, it’s not. He’d missed Louis for years, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, and it’s only now that he’s got him back again that he realizes how desperately he’d needed him. He can’t explain it, really, but then, he figures maybe it doesn’t need explaining. It is, and that’s enough.

-

“Why didn’t you ever come back and see me?” Harry asks one night. They’re hidden in Harry’s room, blankets pulled up around them. Harry thinks it might snow tonight, it’s so cold. “When we were kids.”

“My mum, mostly,” Louis says, and then continues when Harry just looks at him quizzically. “Well, like, okay. I guess your mum and my mum knew each other somehow, maybe there’s some network for parents of people like us, but anyway. At first mum thought it would be good for me to meet other kids like me, because I was like. Embarrassed, I guess. I thought I shouldn’t be able to make things appear, like it was bad. So she figured I should meet others like me, yeah? So that’s when we came to see you.”

Harry nods. “I asked mum for _weeks_ when you were coming back again,” he admits. “Maybe months, even.” Louis just hums, pulls Harry tighter and presses a kiss into his hair.

“I wanted to come back, cos you were basically the only kid I’d ever met who thought what I could do what cool, and not just fucked up. But then, like.” He sighs. “Lottie started to get bullied, when more people found out what I could do, and everyone pretended not to be bothered by it, but.” He frowns off into the room, not looking at anything in particular.

“And then, there was this whole... thing. My mum only just told me about it a few years ago. There was one of us, a bloke down near Brighton, who... well, like. I guess he’d been doing something shifty for a long time, something with money and fame and it all had to do with balance? So he could have whatever he wanted, like, but it would have to be taken away from someone else, so he had all this money and cars and happiness and all that, but he had to steal it away from the people around him. Or that’s what my mum told me. And then, like, when people found out, it was -- it was bad. He, um. He disappeared. And then they found him, and he was dead, someone had killed him, so, like.” Louis stops. “Mum just worried too much, and she thought it was better if I just pretended I couldn’t. So I tried to, for a long time, but...”

“You can’t,” Harry continues. “You can’t just pretend it’s not there, can you?” He knows what it feels like, remembers how it was when one summer he decided to pretend to be normal, just to see what it was like, but it was always there, itching under his fingertips, waiting.

“No. I tried for a long time, I really did, because I knew she wanted me to, but it didn’t work. So I just did it as little as possible, and I figured it was easier if I never told anyone. But... it’s just awful, y’know, to know you’ve got this thing that could be really brilliant, but everyone you know is telling you it’s bad and wrong and you ought to be ashamed of it.” He stops. “And my mum wouldn’t -- she’s the same as me, have I told you that?”

Harry shakes his head. He’d guessed, but not wanted to ask.

“She wouldn’t ever do it. She’d just lie and say she never could, but I knew it wasn’t true, just that she wanted to hide it all of a sudden...” He trails off, and Harry hums at him, trying to sound soft and kind. That must have done a proper mess with Louis’ head, he thinks, especially if he hadn’t known his mum was mostly just scared for him. He’d have thought she was just ashamed of him. The thought makes Harry feel a bit sick.

Louis shrugs, as if to punctuate the end of his story. “Anyway, that was ages ago. I would’ve looked for you, though, if I’d had any way.”

Harry tightens the arm he has slung around Louis’ stomach.

“I missed you,” he says quietly. “Missed you all the time. Even when I didn’t know it was you I was missing.”

“M’here now,” Louis says. “Planning to stay for a bit, if you’ll have me.”

“Won’t kick you out until morning at least,” Harry jokes, quiet. Louis smiles, and somewhere in the following minutes, they both fall asleep as the rain picks up.

-

Harry wakes up to the sound of rain, again. It’s still entirely dark outside, and when he glances blearily at the clock, it’s only half four. Still, he’s awake, and he has to piss, so he slowly pulls away from Louis, who’s tangled around him like ivy and making soft breathy noises in his sleep. He frowns a bit as Harry gets out of bed, but doesn’t wake.

In the hallway, the light of the television flickers blue from the front room, and on his way back from the loo Harry goes to shut it off.

Zayn and Liam are piled up on the sofa, both sleeping curled in on each other as the television flashes mutely, stuck on a commercial for some novelty teakettle. Harry moves to turn it off and throw a blanket over the two, and when he does, his finger brushes Zayn’s neck just where Liam’s got his nose pressed into it. All of a sudden, Harry is overwhelmed, feeling a sense of calm and belonging and love that is so overwhelming his head spins and he thinks he might need to sit down. If this is how strongly Zayn feels in his sleep, Harry wonders how he manages to go about his business all day without tipping over under the gravity of it.

He moves back towards his bedroom still feeling shaky, thrown off by the intensity of the feeling coursing through him. He curls in tight next to Louis and presses a kiss to his temple, carding his fingers through Louis’ hair. Without meaning to, he realizes he’s making the air around them start to glow, sending out soft yellow light that brushes across the planes of Louis’ face. Where his fingers are pressed into Louis’ hair and onto his hip, it glows brightest, little pinpricks where the molecules that surround their points of contact light up like stars. Harry’s never done something like that before, changed something so small and so big all at once.

Inside his chest his heart is still beating ragged, overwhelmed with love. He wonders why it hasn’t faded away by now, now that he’s away from Zayn and back safely with Louis, but then he looks at Louis’ face, and the light around his fingertips, and realizes.

**Author's Note:**

>  _found yourself in a new direction_  
>  eons far from the sun  
> can you come when they come to reach you  
> let you know you’re not the only one
> 
>  
> 
> _can’t keep hanging on_  
>  to all that’s dead and gone  
> if you build yourself a myth  
> know just what to give


End file.
